There is a certain category of wearables and IoT devices that require advanced graphics and video processing alongside the sensors, connectivity and general-purpose processors; these devices feature displays and need to run multimedia-rich apps that require smooth OpenGL® ES graphics.

Even though the potential for this market is quite impressive, there have been several issues facing wide adoption of IoT and wearables devices. This is because most of these devices are currently powered by sub-optimal solutions derived from smartphone chips which cause power consumption problems.

To address these issues, Imagination is introducing PowerVR GX5300, a GPU specifically designed for ultra-low power, low area OpenGL ES graphics rendering.

PowerVR GX5300 is a GPU optimized for extremely low area and power requirements

PowerVR GX5300 is designed to address the ultra-low power requirements of wearables. Whereas previous generation smartwatches could render graphics using a software-only approach or a simple 2D engine, newer wearable devices require fully featured GPUs to drive higher resolution user interfaces. PowerVR GX5300 can comfortably drive 480p and 720p resolutions representative of modern smartwatches, while offloading the main CPU and reducing software complexity.

The internal architecture of the new PowerVR GX5300 GPU

Additionally, PowerVR GX5300 has been optimized to occupy the lowest silicon area possible: at only 0.55mm2 (post layout) when implemented in a 28nm process node from TSMC, it is the smallest OpenGL ES 2.0 GPU capable of running Android, Android Wear and other Linux-based operating systems. This makes it up to 2x smaller than competing single-core designs manufactured in a similar process node.

PowerVR GX5300 is based on the highly successful PowerVR Series5 family, which features a number of advantages over competing solutions, especially when it comes to power consumption:

Low power and high precision graphics: All PowerVR GPUs offer a mix of low power (FP16) and high precision (FP32) rendering and implement the full OpenGL ES 2.0 specification whereas some competing solutions offer no support for FP32 which results in visual artefacts and lack of compatibility.

Use cases for GPUs in wearables and IoT

Embedded Linux or Android-based connected home systems

System architects can use PowerVR GX5300 GPUs for platforms that require graphics rendering for interactive home automation controls. For example, electronic appliances can be equipped with multimedia displays that show readings such as temperature or humidity but can also connect to the internet to bring up cake recipes, best storage practices for certain products or washing tips and tricks for clothes.

The Discovery IQ smart oven from Dacor uses a PowerVR GPU to run the Android GUI

Android Wear

Imagination was one of the official launch partners of Android Wear. We have been working closely with our ecosystem to optimize our processor IP and tools for operating systems designed for wearables. Silicon vendors can combine MIPS, PowerVR and Ensigma processors to create low power solutions for smartwatches, smart glasses and other connected devices.

The new PowerVR GX5300 GPU is a perfect fit inside a typical SoC for mainstream wearables

Conclusion

PowerVR GX5300 is a graphics processor optimized for wearable and IoT use cases. The extremely low area and reducedpower consumption makes it an ideal solution for devices that require multimedia processing yet have strict heat dissipation profiles and need to run off much smaller batteries.

We’ve made updates to our tools and IP to help system architects integrate the design much faster and ensure companies get to market faster. The many unique features of our PowerVR GX5300 GPU enable architects to create a complete multimedia platform that incorporates the smallest yet most powerful graphics hardware IP for this category of devices. We are very excited to see how this new GPU will get integrated into some next generation exciting products that we will wear on our wrists, on our clothes or in our pockets.

About Alexandru Voica

After having experienced the fast-paced world of the IP business as a junior engineer at various companies around Europe, Alexandru Voica has decided to pursue his dream of working in technology marketing and PR for Imagination Technologies. His background includes research in computer graphics at the School of Advanced Studies Sant'Anna in Pisa and a brief stint as a CPU engineer. When not planted firmly in front of his laptop, Alexandru can be found hitting the basketball court, singing along at a rock n' roll concert, enjoying art cinema or reading his favorite American authors. You can follow him on Twitter @alexvoica.

To make it ultra affordable was this a reason to go with a series 5 baseline design and not series 6 XE. Seems strange was you were recently touting 6XE as addressing the low end markets notable the G6050. Could this cannibalise 6XE?

There is some overlap between the two in terms of the market they address. But primarily it is about performance, power and feature set vs. area. GX5300 is as low as a GPU can go in terms of area, however G6050 offers better performance efficiency.

Additionally, G6050 bumps up the feature set considerably, with support for OpenGL ES 3.0 and OpenCL 1.2, meaning more efficient use of graphics and compute functionality.

So no, I don’t think Series5XE would cannibalize Series6XE. Instead, we are expanding the roadmap to offer more solutions at various performance/feature/price points.